


Sanctuary

by smiles2go



Series: Sanctuary [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dumbledore Bashing, Gen, Hogwarts First Year, Manipulation, Sentient Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 15:05:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13837293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smiles2go/pseuds/smiles2go
Summary: Takes place near the end of The Philosopher’s Stone. Immediately following the fight with Professor Quirrell and Voldemort.  Sentient Hogwarts offers Harry a different choice.





	Sanctuary

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone should know by now who owns what and I own nothing. 
> 
> Immense thanks to Brumeier for her work as beta on this fic as well as all the encouragement given during my long dry spell. She never gave up on me and that made the difference. 
> 
> It's possible there will be a sequel

**Sanctuary**

  
  
  


_Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—_

_I took the one less traveled by,_

_And that has made all the difference._

Robert Frost

  


“Wake up, Harry James Potter. It’s time to go.”

 With a gasp, Harry woke and pushed himself up, glancing around frantically. His heart was thumping so hard he needed both hands to stop it from jumping out of his chest. He was still in the room with the mirror of Erised only it seemed much bigger now. The lump of robes nearby must have been what was left of Professor Quirrell after Voldy blasted out of his head and he ... When the Headmaster got there they’d send him to Azkaban for murder. He was a murderer.

 “Are you awake Harry James?”  That voice again.  He blinked and swivelled around til he found her in the shadows.

 Most of the torches had blown out but he could tell she was tall with a stern face, and maybe kind eyes. She wore long, dark skirts covered by a white apron instead of robes.  There was some kind of light behind her, near the far wall that was much farther away than it used to be.

“Am I…”   He cleared a suddenly dry throat. “... am i dead?  Are you an angel?”  He ached all over.  Did it hurt when you were dead?

 “No, child. I am something much better.”  She walked toward him, crunching through the broken mirror glass.  Crouching down in front of him, she examined him with sorrowful eyes.  “I will heal you, but to do that I will have to touch you.”

 He wanted to scramble to his feet and back away, he hated being touched, let alone by a stranger.. “Who are you?” He didn’t know her. She wasn’t one of the Professors. She was too real to be a ghost.

 “Hogwarts,”  she said.  “I am Hogwarts.”

 “Um.”  Was the best he could do?  “The castle Hogwarts? _This_ castle Hogwarts?”  He must have a concussion or something.  Nothing was making sense.  He rubbed at his eyes. Maybe he was having a fever dream and he was already up in the infirmary.

 “Yes child.”  She smiled slightly.  “May I heal you?” Now that she was close Harry could see she did have kind eyes; they were a weird shade of gray, but sort of gentle.

 “Ok,”  he said tentatively.  “Wait! Touch where?”

 “Here.”  She poked one freezing cold finger against his forehead and Harry was engulfed in icy fire, which made no sense at all.  After an eternity he was able to breathe again and wrapped his arms around himself tightly, gasping for air.  The pain was gone. All the pain was gone.  Cuts and bruises from fighting Voldy, the burns on his palms, the throbbing pain in his scar, even the deep ache in his left hand where Dudley had slammed it in the door last summer.

 He looked up at her in wonder, to thank her, to ask how, to … euw. She was holding a squirming octopus-looking thing in one hand, studying it dispassionately. Black slime dripped slowly from some of the tentacles to sizzle on the stone floor below.

 “What is that?”  He scooted back a foot or so before anything could drip on him. “Where’d it come from?”  

 “This is a dark magic leech. Dumbledore should have removed when he took you.”

 “Re..removed it?”  Harry asked faintly. Surely not.  “It was in me?” No way.

 “In your scar.”  She nodded.  “It will heal  now, I think.”  

 She stood and walked toward the bundle of rags and dust that had been Professor Quirrell and Voldy.  Squeezing tightly, she crushed the leech. Black slime and even a bit of black smoke slid out when she opened her hand.  Wrinkling up her nose, she bent and wiped her hand clean on the Professor’s robes, then rubbed her hands together briskly.  “It was left behind when the Dark One gave you that scar.”

 “But … you said the Headmaster didn’t remove it?”  Harry scrambled to his feet.  “He knew it was there?  He… knew?”  His voice sounded breathless even to himself. He swallowed hard.  That thing had been in his head.   His stomach roiled.  He pressed one hand over his mouth and swallowed heavily. He wouldn’t get sick now, not here. The Headmaster would explain when he came.

 “Dumbledore is very careless with his tools.  I will not let him use you anymore.”  

 “What?  I’m not a … a tool.”  The Headmaster had been nothing but kind to him.  “You’re wrong.”  He could count the number of adults that had been nice to him on one hand.

 “I’m never wrong.”  She said it without the arrogance or smirk that Hermione would have shown. Her voice calm and matter-of-fact.  “He has an unnatural interest in you, Harry James.”  

 His eyebrows shot up so high, his glasses almost fell off. “No. He… he never…”  Even the hated Dursley’s had never done anything like _that._  

 “He calls no other student by their first name, even the ones that have been here the longest. Invites no others up to his office for weekly tea. He named himself your guardian barely a day after your parents were killed. After he sealed their wills.”  She chuckled, a dark, grating sound.  “Then he left you in a basket on the front step of those muggles in the middle of the night with just a note.”

 “I… no.”  Harry shook his head. She had to be wrong.  “They never… “ Well they wouldn’t, would they?  No talk of magic or _freaky things_. Never telling him more than he’d been dumped on them without their consent and ordered to keep him.

 “He controls your inheritance, sends them a stipend each month for your care. Such as it is.  He plans to keep you ignorant and send you back every summer, til you’re broken enough to obey him without thinking.  Telling you it’s the only way to keep you _safe_ .”  She huffed. “ _I_ will keep you safe, Harry James.  That i promise you.”

 “What?” He couldn’t believe this. “Inheritance?  I don’t … no.”  The Dursleys were being _paid_ to keep him?  He wanted to scream and break things. Preferably Uncle Vernon’s face.

 “You are the last son of the House of Potter.  That’s no small thing. He wants a willing sacrifice to destroy Voldemort so he can step in to accept the accolades. He will probably make you a very nice statue I’m sure.”

 “No. No you must be wrong.”  It couldn’t be true. Not Dumbledore. Just…please no.

 “I am Hogwarts, child. I hear everything, see everything inside these walls.  Every stone is my eyes and ears.  I heard him say it. Not all at once mind you. In bits and pieces over the years.  You are not the only person he has used.  But you are a child and he will not use you again.”

 “I’m finding this pretty hard to believe. Why me?”  He rubbed his face again. “Wait. You said you see and hear everything?  Are my friends ok? Ron and Hermione?”

 “Your friends are well. Miss Granger has gone back to the room where Mr. Weasley fell.  She is sitting with his head in her lap. He has a small lump above one ear.  Dumbledore will find them soon.”

 “Thanks. I still don’t understand, though. About the Headmaster I mean. You must have misunderstood.”  She must have. If he didn’t have Dumbledore, he didn’t have anything. Well, two friends he trusted with his life and magic, but still.

 She frowned at him and snapped her fingers.  “Tucker. A glass of cool water for Harry James.”  Suddenly there was a glass of water by his foot.  House elves. She called a house elf and it came. He tried to figure out what that meant, but she was talking again.  

 “There was a prophecy, before you were born.  Dumbledore decided it was you that had the power to defeat the Dark One. Voldemort heard part of the prophecy and he will never, ever give up until one of you is dead. Dumbledore has cast you in the role of Savior--but I say no boy, not even _you,_ Harry James, shall die for his _Greater Good_.”  She almost spit the words, but Harry’s mind locked onto one thing. Prophecy. A prophecy about him? How?

 “What prophecy?”  He picked up the glass and downed it in two big gulps.  “But I’m not anybody special.”  He sat the glass down and blinked when it disappeared.  He felt much better.

 “You have been damaged almost beyond the point of no return, yet the spark in your soul burns brightly. You are someone very special.” She shook her head.  “This is getting us nowhere. I am here, Harry James, to offer you another choice. I am here to offer you Sanctuary.”  

 “A choice? Sanctuary?”  He felt like he was one step behind, repeating everything she said because nothing was making sense. Maybe he was dreaming or maybe he really was dead. “What kind of choice?”

 “Behind me is a door.”  She walked back to where he first saw her, and damn he had forgotten the light, hadn’t even noticed it when she moved.  “That door is a portal to a place where you will never be used or hit or hurt. Never again. You won’t be the Boy Who Lived, you’ll be allowed to grow up without fear or pain. You will be just Harry James Potter.”

 “You’re inviting me to this place? This Sanctuary?”  Ok, that much he understood.  “It’s what? Like going into one the paintings? Another world?”  He wanted to say no. No, he’d stay here with his friends and take his chances with the Headmaster and Voldy, but … he was only eleven, and to never have to go back to the Dursley’s?  Even Ron would say that’d be stupid to give up.  “Are you sure it isn’t Heaven?”

 “No child.”  She shook her head.  “But if you come, I will make arrangements to rescue your godfather and you will have a family.”

 “Godfather? What?” How? Who?  “I have a godfather and no one’s said anything?  Why was I dumped on the Dursley’s then?”  A godfather.  His eyes shone and he couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. Taking several steps toward her, he was ready to go now. His very own godfather, someone who would love him.

 “Yes. His name is Sirius Black. Dumbledore allowed him to be sent to prison for betraying your parents, which he did not do. He could not. He is your sworn godfather.  He would have lost his magic and died.”

 “He’s been in prison all this time?”  Harry looked down at his feet.  That was surely worse than the Dursley’s.  He’d heard a bit about Azkaban prison. Might even be sent there soon himself for what happened to Professor Quirrell.

 “Yes, Harry James. He’s in a bad way. Guarded night and day by floating nightmares that don’t disappear when he wakes up.  He will need lots of love and care.”

 “I can do that.”  Could he? Was he ready to walk away from his friends? Would they be ok without him? Would he lose his magic?

 “You will not lose your magic, nor will you need that stick. Magic is in the heart, not a piece of wood,”  She said with a frown, as if reading his mind.

 “Will I grow up? I mean, this kind of sounds like Never Never Land.”  It wasn’t normal, whatever it was.  What kind of people were there, besides her? And maybe house elves?

 She grinned for the first time, showing even white teeth.  “Do I look like Tinkerbell to you?”  She shook her head, the grin fading slowly.  

 He took the hand she held out.  It wasn’t ice cold like before, but it was cool.  He only shivered once. Maybe she was a vampire.

 “You can leave the glasses behind.” She looked him up and down.  “You won’t need them on the other side.  Let Dumbledore explain your wand and your glasses and a pile of dust in Quirrell’s robes. Not to mention the missing stone.”    She patted an apron pocket at his look of surprise.  

 She moved and he could see the doorway. Portal. Whatever. It looked out onto a park-like scene and as they walked closer he could hear children laughing.  His footsteps slowed.

 “Will I ever be able to come back?”  He looked behind him, just in case his dead body really was laying there and he was headed to Heaven with some kind of angel.

 “Of course you will.”  She squeezed his hand. “Sanctuary is forever, but it’s not a prison.  What good would it be for the Potter Heir to disappear forever? Time passes differently there. Be warned.”

 He searched her eyes, looking for truth or honesty, or a lie. “You promise? I can grow up with people who love me?  I won’t have to be the Boy Who Lived anymore? I won’t be hungry? Or smacked or sleep in a cupboard? I won’t have anymore nightmares?”

 “I promise, Harry James.”  She touched the top of his head.  “Forever and always.”

 “Ok.”  He took a deep breath and nodded.  “Ok then. Let’s get this show on the road.”  He took two steps and stopped.

 “Wait.”  Harry looked up at her. “So you knew my parents, right?”

 “Certainly.  James Potter and Lily Evans.”

 “Will you… will you tell me about them?  No one really…. Oh no! The invisibility cloak!  My dad’s cloak! I can’t leave without it!  Please Miss… Hogwarts. I …”

 “Tucker. Bring Harry James’ cloak.” She snapped her fingers.  In less than ten seconds, the item appeared floating before them.  Harry grabbed it and clutched it to his chest.  “Anything else you’ve forgotten?”  Her eyes twinkled down at him.

 “Well, now that you mention it. Um, what about clothes and things?  Won’t I need those?”

 “Everything will be provided.”

 “Everything?”

 “Yes. Everything.”  

 “Ok. Right.”  Harry bit his lip.

 “Are you sure you are ready this time?  Anything else you cannot live without?”  He could hear the smile in her voice and decided not to stick his tongue out at her.  He was eleven after all.

 “Ok then, I’m ready. Let’s go.”  Still clutching his cloak, Harry walked through the portal. _Sanctuary._  He took a deep breath and the portal snapped closed behind him.

 

 

fin


End file.
